*to generate 133,000 jobs

By Franklin Alli

Nigeria’s sugar market of over 165 million consumers and opportunities for high returns on investment have attracted $2.570 million (about N398, 350,000,000) investment from   local and international investors. The investment represents funds expended to expand production capacity to meet current and future consumption.

A breakdown of the figure, made available to Financial Vanguard by the National Sugar Development Council, NSDC, showed that Dangote Group is leading the pack with a fresh investment of $2 billion on projects in six states to produce about 1.5 million metric tons and to expand its Savannah Sugar Numan from current 6,500 hectare (ha) to 21,000 ha by 2018 to produce 100,000 tonnes sugar annually. On its part, “HoneyGold Group is to invest $300 million on two sites in Adamawa state to produce 200,000 tonnes sugar annually.

“Similarly, Crystal Sugar Mills is spending $30 million to expand its operations to produce 60,000 tonnes sugar/annum by 2018 from its recently acquired 1,500 TCD Sugar plant at Hadejia, Jigawa state while Confluence Sugar Coy is investing $240million in Kogi State to produce 200,000tonnes sugar/annum on about 37,000 ha of land at Ibaji.  This brings the cumulative investment to more than N398 billion.”

Latif Busari, Executive Secretary of the NSDCl, said  the sugar investors have also projected to generate 133,300 jobs over the next seven years (2014-2020.)
He said that currently, companies in the sector have 2,641 workers on their payrolls and have projected that the cumulative figure will hit 133,300 by 2020.
“As as at last year, Dangote Sugar Refinery was the highest employer in the sector with 1,321 staff across its operation and hopes that their total workforces will hit100, 000 market by 2020.

Golden Sugar Company has 695 workforces and hopes to increase it to 3,300; BUA Sugar presently has 75 workers and is targeting15, 000; Confluence Sugar 115/ 8,000; Crystal 35/ 3,500 and PSPAN currently has 400 workers and hopes to increase it to 3,000 by 2020.
According to him, the story of Nigerian Sugar Industry started in 1961 with the establishment of the Nigerian Sugar Company, Bacita followed by Savannah Sugar Company, Numan in 1980.

“The combined installed capacity of the two mills was 105,000MT with highest actual production of 54,000MT which could only supply 7.5 percent of total demand in 1986.
“All through the 1980s and 1990s no new investment came into the sector and by the late 1990s, the sugar sector had virtually collapsed while Nigeria continued to rely heavily on imported refined sugar necessitating a new government policy direction.

“In 2000 and 2007, the sector witnessed new investments with the establishment sugar refineries by Dangote Group and BUA Group, respectively.
“Their advent though welcome, only succeeded in substituting the importation of refined sugar with raw sugar. The privatisation of government-owned sugar companies in the mid 2003-2007 was intended to inject new investment in the sub-sector. Golden Sugar Refinery (owned by FMN Plc) came on stream late 2012

“The approval of the Nigerian Sugar Master Plan (NSMP) in September, 2012 marked a new phase in the development of the sugar industry. Objectives: Raise local sugar production to attain self sufficiency; investors’ specific fiscal incentives to attract investment into the sector.
Implementation of Backward Integration Programme (BIP) with support incentives, robust monitoring and evaluation of BIP; stem the tide of high level importation; high graduated tariff structure on sugar importation; import quota allocation benchmarked on local production